Ideology

The messages and values that I wish to bring forward to the audience is the representation of gender and youth. Gender because I want to show that female artist are very much capable of making a name for themselves and that youth because even at a young age you can still take music and take into your own and inspire people. This will be shown through alternative ideologies as it is not following the dominant ideologies of what most magazines think is the norm in today's music. I wish to make a difference and I believe the only way to do this is through having an alternative look to the dominant ideology in today's society.

Instituition

The institution that my media text belongs to is IPC Publishing - who publish Music Magazines such as NME. The typical traits of  'NME' magazine follows similar characteristics to my magazine; for example with independent and alternative style to music.

Representation

The main character that will be my protagonist throughout my magazine will be, a solo artist named 'Isabella Marcia'. An independent singer with a very strong Spanish background, influenced by her father and other female artists. She will be represented as a nice, down to earth fun person which the audience can relate to and get to understand as a person.

Audience

To identify my appropriate target audience I used the Demographic profiling 'GRASS'.

G ender

R ace

A ge

S ocio-economic S taus

Gender - As my magazine is based on female artist I think it would be more suited for a female audience

Race - Any race could read my magazine as it is not designed for any specific background. However, the White/Caucasian race are more likely to buy the magazine as they are more likely to listen to the style of music.

Age - The age range of my magazine would typically be 16-25 years old. This is because this is age is most popular for being interested in music, and would bring a wider variety of audience to the magazine.

Socio-economic Status - I believe classes E-B are most likely to buy/read my magazine as these are most common in the ages of 16-25 for example student, manual workers etc and would find my magazine more appealing than the upper classes who tend to be older 25+ and may not find the genre/style of the magazine entertaining.

I also used Psycho graphic profiling of 'Malow's Hierarchy of Needs' to help decide my target audience. He found that all living things have basic needs and humans are no exception. He created a pyramid that was spilt into five separate sections;

Self-actualization

Esteem

Love/Belonging

Safety

Physiological

My magazine will cover the basic needs of Self-actualization - because i believe the magazine brings creativity and spontaneity to my audience as it broadens their musical taste. And Esteem - as it may bring confidence to the female audience showing and proving that female artist can succeed in the music industry.

As further research I created a questionnaire to receive helpful feedback from my possible target audience;

Music Magazine Questionnaire

(please answer questions where necessary)

1. Are you Male/Female?

2. Please state your age:

16-17-18-19-20-21-22-23-24-25

3. What style of music are you interested in?

Alternative-Pop-R+B-Rock-Dance-Indie-Others... Please state

4. Do you purchase Music Magazines?

Yes-No

5. If yes how often?

Weekly/Monthly

6. How much are you willing to pay for a Music Magazine?

£1.00-£2.00 £2.00-£3.00 £3.00-£4.00

7. Would you like to see a variety in Music Magazines to suit your taste? If so please state:

8. What colour scheme would catch your eye or look more interesting to the style of a Female alternative/Independent magazine?

Pink-Grey-Black/Orange-Yellow-Red/Blue-Green-Purple

Narrative

In my magazine I will try to follow most of the typical narrative structure. The narrative structure is very important for its audience because it allows them to feel comfortable with the genre and layout of the magazine.The Front cover, Content page and Feature article in my magazine will follow the typical narrative headings, sub headings, dominant photo and bright colours. My photographs will all consist of the typical mise en scene of independent genre. All of this will help grab to the audiences attention as they are getting what they want out of a magazine.

Genre

The genre for my music magazine is mostly alternative/ independent music. This type of music is increasingly becoming more popular within the music industry. However to bring a difference to my magazine a decided to base this genre just on female independent and alternative well known artist. I thought this would give a unique twist as it is mostly male artists/bands that dominate this particular genre, and introducing an independent music magazine just for females would help to increase the audience towards independent female artist. The mise en scene for this particular magazine would be to have the photo shoot in locations such as bedrooms, outdoors and to have the female artist with an individual fashion sense. The unique selling point to my magazine is the genre it is the same but different as my magazine would be similar to 'NME' magazine but it is purely based on female artist. It also introduces new ways in which artist change more popular music into their own acoustic versions.

Research - Music Magazine Double Page Spread

Here is an example of music magazines Feature Article from 'NME'.

Research - Music Magazine Double Page Spread

Here is an example of a music magazines Feature Article.

I really liked the idea of this type of feature article I thought the layout was inventive and it really establishes the artist and the music genre of rock/pop. The headline immediately grabs the attention of its audience its big and bold and clear to read. It is also a quote from the artist which establishes her character. The text dominates almost half the side of one page and glides onto the other. This is the same for the image of the artist ‘Lilly Allen’ she is shot in a close up of her torso however, put on a huge scale to further dominate the page and make the readers not feel overwhelmed by text. The content is all clear and easy to see on one side of the page. It is in chronological order and so makes it easier for the audience to understand the text with having to think too hard. The colour scheme is slightly bland with whites, blacks and greys. But this is then contrasted with the red in the artist shirt which enables her to jump out of the page at the audience.

Research - Music Magazine Contents

Here is an example of a popular music magazines contents page from 'NME'

I found the idea of this contents page interesting because of the use of images. This contents page cleverly uses the images as page numbers instead of just listing the pages. Plus as they are different shapes and sizes scattered around the page, this is more visually appealing to its audience as they do not have to read or look up for the page they want they can simply look at the pictures. The images dominate the page which gives a clear message to the genre of the music magazine by the; drum kits, indie bands and solo artists. However there is still a contents list which runs down the left side of the magazine the font is not that big so it doesn't over power the images but there is a little colour of red added to help the contents list appear more on the page. The colour scheme is black, grey, white and red. These colours are used in most 'NME' magazines and are again used to reflect the genre of 'rock', 'indie' style music. The brightness of the red, contrasted with the black and grey helps it stand out from the page which encourages the reader to take notice of the contents. Also the title/header is very unusually set out the title of the page is 'Contents' however it is allot smaller than the title 'DRUMMER' , which makes the word drummer stand out more, this may be because the title is the main theme of this issue. The magazine again uses this technique to entice its audience into reading further.

Feedback - 6/12/09

See my previous post! You need alot more on here to get a decent coursework grade Taylor - you should now be working on this (research) as homework and all the planning you are doing in class should be put on here also.

Research : Essential - research your target audience - use your demographic and psychographic profiling - do some questionannires and put yoru results on your blog

Planning ( see the 'Before you Blog' handout - last 2 pages)

Include..

- Moodboards

-mock ups of pages

-location shots

-props/costume list

- rough draft of feature article etc...

Miss McNulty

Research - Music Magazine Contents

Here is an example of an magazines contents page.

I really like the idea of this contents page, the idea that strikes me the most is the title as it is bold bright and stands out from its contrasting background. Also in the way in which the letters have been placed, it is an interesting way which fits in with the style and makes the contents page more visually appealing to the reader. Although the colour scheme may not be colourful the double tone of the back ground contrasting with the text and the image all links together and make the contents page encouraging for the reader to read on. Another reason why I really like the idea of this contents page is the strong image dominates the page. The model whilst giving direct address, also shows her whole body on the page this is because of the way she is cleverly placed with her legs up it really makes a statement to the person and gives her personality. Also with the shoes that she is wearing make a stand out as a main feature to her outfit and our a main focus on the page. The list of contents also works very well with the genre of the page as they are placed on a slant to fit next to the model and not covering her, whilst the font of the text makes it interesting enough to still be seen by the reader.

Research - Music Magazine Covers

Here is an example of a popular music magazine's front cover from 'NME'.

I really liked the idea of this magazine as it has lots going on and if very different from the normal music magazine. I can see that this magazine knows its audience very well and plays all the conventions to it advantage. Such conventions as its bold, bright and big font that is scattered around the cover gives a typical age range of 16-25. This is because of the massive amount of advertisement used to entice the audience into the magazine as people of this age range would be interested in upcoming festivals and other bands where abouts. This magazine also cleverly includes free gifts for its audience 'WIN! LUXURY TENT' as it knows that and age range of 16-25 is generally students, and they would not have allot of money to pay for things that they would need for events such as festivals. So by including this it would unknowingly make them want to go to a festival more. The leading caption of this magazine is a well known artist 'Lilly Allen' she has been used as the main feature of this magazine, however she has been shot in indirect address. This may be because as she is well known to her audience by her shot being in indirect address it helps show 'Lilly Allen's' rebellious personality and enhances the audiences interest as they would want to no what she has been up to. The gender of the audience for this magazine could be both male and female as all of its subheadings and main titles cater for both genders. The magazine mainly bases its audience on students as they would be the people most likely to buy it and that are most interested in music.

Research - Music Magazine Covers

Here is an example of a popular music magazine's front cover from 'Rolling Stone'.

I really liked the initial idea of this front cover as it stands out from most music magazines. The magazine manages to incorporate allot of typical conventions; for instance the main focus of this front cover which includes a leading caption that dominates the page . This fits in with the content of the magazine as it is a music magazine and has featured a well known female artist 'Taylor Swift'. The image is in direct address which helps to invite the reader into the magazine, this also represents the main advertisement for the magazine and as 'Taylor Swift' is a well admired celebrity this cleverly increase sales as audiences would want to read about her. However the Header of this magazine has been covered by the artist which is generally not a typical convention but this is because of the popularity of the magazine that its audience would know what the magazine was. This is something that I would not include in my magazine because it is new to the music magazine market. The text that is included on the cover of this magazine is its subheadings - all of the subheadings are placed at the right side of the magazine and do not cover the leading caption but are still very noticeable to the reader. Each subheading includes at least one famous musical artist, which again entices the reader into the magazine as they are also getting information about many other artists. This helps link into the theme of a music magazine as it is mainly based around the modern musical artist. The piece of text that is most visible to the reader is 'Taylor Swift' with a strap line underneath - 'Secrets of a Good Girl' this makes the reader want to open the magazine as they would want to no what this meant about the artist as it doesn't give away to much information for the reader to understand what it means straight away.

Feedback - 28/11/09

A promising start Taylor- but you are a little behind the other students - you need to do more work at home on this blog.

The first genre you should be analysing is music magazines - outline the conventions and then look at covers, contents pages and feature articles and think about the following questions...

- Do they follow typical conventions of music magazines? If not why?

- Who is the target audience (GRASS) and how have they been made to appeal to them?

- Do they successfully make the audience want to read on? ( Cover and contents?)

- why do they work?

In research you need a little more on audience - who is your target audience (Demographic - GRASS and psychographic profiling - Young and Rubicon) Also how will your product appeal to its audience - use MAslow too.

questionnaires are needed - to your target audience - and feedback on this - charts and graphs are always good!

Go onto the ABC website to find out audience/circulation figures for magazines too - is there a market out there for your product?

Now move onto planning this week - ( see the last two sheets on the 'before you blog' handout) Start your mood boards, rough mock up of pages, props list, shooting schedule etc....

Preliminary Task - Print

Secondly for my Preliminary Task I had to create a rough draft contents page for my prelim task front cover. My contents page is a simple layout  that is linked into the theme of a college magazine. It is quite basic in colour and appearance which realistically would not appeal to the reader. However, I was able to keep the contents list suitable to the audience as the language is suited towards the young audience by the humorous puns and relevant info that will interest them for example 'Winter Ball 09'. I have very little use of images on my contents page so this means that the text is more dominant and so there is no direct address. I managed to add one image to the contents page which kept in with the running theme of winter. This may create a slight direct address because this would inform the reader that this will be the ongoing theme throughout.               

Preliminary Task - Print

In my Preliminary task I had to create a front cover for a new School/College magazine, which would feature a photograph in medium close-up shot of a student including appropriately laid-out text and a masthead.

What worked well

- It was my intention to make the magazine cover bright as this brings interest and entices the audience towards the magazine. This also added to the theme of the magazine as it brought out a sense of college spirit.

- I co-ordinated the colours into and blue and white colour scheme, this was because I thought it best reflected my target audience as it looked fresh and clear to read. This also represented my genre as it was edging towards the theme of winter and snow and so made the magazine cover crisp and bold.      

- I believe my title helps create a brand image as it will look easily recognizable to the student audience as it looks academic in that it looks hand written in neat italics. I also included a slogan underneath my title which brings back the theme that this is a college magazine that is made just for students. 

- My image of the model photographed was a clear medium shot which included the models upper torso. This gives direct address to the audience as it is clear he is a student and can relate to the audience.        

What went wrong

- I had a very small variety of fonts, the only difference in font was my title and subheadings. This made my magazine less visually interesting and eye-catching as the font was plain and all identical. However I did keep to the 'house style' as I had stuck to the same fonts. 

- My subheadings were quite poor and I don't think they advertised the magazine well as they are not interesting enough to appeal to the student audience. 

- I had also not included a date and barcode onto my front cover which would have helped in the realistic appeal on the college magazine.     

- As I only used InDesign to create my prelim task the image used on the cover  does not look professional as the model has red-eye and unwanted shadows around him, this may be because of the flash on the camera. However when I am creating my final project I will use Photoshop to edit the image.     

 

Chosen Brief

My name is Taylor Barnes and for my main task coursework I will be creating a new music magazine.